Somewhere Different

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SOMEWHERE DIFFERENT It was fine and warm as we started up the Owen Valley but already in the south the sky was darkening with the promise of rain to come. We followed up the river, along a track cut and benched by miners in their early searches for gold, the rusted and half buried remains of heavy cast-iron machinery a reminder of the effort involved for the small amounts of gold ever recovered. Up Bulner Creek the bush was littered with windfalls and the creek jammed with slime covered boulders and logs. But further on the bush opened and the creek disappeared underground, SO we followed the dry gravel bed easily to a grove of mountain ribbonwood. From here we could see a great band of grey bluffs enclosing the valley on three sides. There seemed only one way through these bluffs, up a crumbling, greasy little gut to an obvious ledge. But it wasn't as easy as it had looked. Scrub on the side was no better, it became vertical and small rocky ledges just pettered out. So we sidled to the bottom of a second unlikely looking gully and were surprised when it opened out to a broad easy ramp which we climbed till it too disappeared. Here we scrambled back and forth, quite sure the ledge that crossed the bluffs was nearby. But always we ended up on little terraces that tapered away to nothing. Then Bill noticed a sort of cave that vanished along the cliff. By wriggling around blocks of rock that had fallen from the roof and dragging our packs after us we scrambled along this, till it opened out again. Here was the ledge, a remarkable pathway across the bluffs. The cliff face leaned out above us, water dripping from the top fell well out from the ledge, and onlya few hardy shrubs grew in the dry chalky ground. Once across we headed through open beech forest up a confusing array of shallow gullies and low ridges which led us finally to the bush edge.

Here we found ourselves in another vast ampitheatre. Sheer bluffs stood around a windswept lake, their tops covered in new fallen snow while the higher peaks were hidden in dark cloud, giving the whole scene a cold and forbidding look. A few flurries of snow flew with the rain and we scurried back to pitch the fly in the bush. The rain started in earnest as we cooked tea and drummed steadily on the fly through the night. Despite our predictions and a lot more snow, next morning there was "enough blue sky for a pair of sailors trousers" our criterion for going on or retreating. So we started off. Up a broad steep snowgrass spur and into a maze of snow covered rock outcrops. These became more and more confused and we spent much time scrambling around, under and over them. Called Castle Basin on the map, there were towers, spires and smooth humped slabs, shaped and wom from the limestone over thousands of years. Now covered in snow these appeared and disappeared in the swirling mist. Between same of them were great rifts and holes. A stone dropped down, clattered and banged until too faint to hear. We crossed the basin on an old deer trail through the snowgrass, and climbed the other rim. By now it was SO gloomy we relied on map and compass to get us through the next series of smaller basins, sometimes sure of our whereabouts, sametimes completely mystified. Eventually we reached a long easy ridge we knew led down to the river and Ferries Hut. We had lunch here, sitting by a cherry fire while our wet gear steamed dry and pondered whether to go on, or stay the night in the warm dry hut with bunks and mattresses. Finally the decision was made to spring into action, but by now it was SO late we could manage only an hour down the river before it became too dark to continue. The fly was pitched on a soggy but comfortable site in the bush. It rained continuiously during the night, but by next morning the sky had cleared. Our last day was spent getting down a much neglected track that headed us in all directions and kept us guessing as to where exactly: it was taking us. Especially since we had walked off the edge of our map. In spite of a frustrating series of ups and downs, windfalls and slips, it was an enjoyable and interesting day - across frost covered grassy flats, through deep narrow gorg es with huge limestone bluffs, over a ridge to an untracked boggy stream - all the time in bright sunshine. Then finally down a narrow creek and back out to the Owen Valley farmland fram where we had started. It had been an enjoyable and interesting trip through country like neither of us had been in before. Certainly somewhere different. TONY GAZLEY, BILL DRAKE